CABLE 82

Your own cable network. You set the programming.

CABLE 82 runs a dial of TV channels in one browser, from one Node.js server with no dependencies. It plays on a laptop, a flat panel, or a Raspberry Pi feeding a 1987 television on channel 3.

Quick start

You need Node.js 18 or newer.

git clone https://github.com/nothans/cable-82
cd cable-82
node server.js

The server prints the addresses it answers on:

CABLE 82 broadcasting
  http://localhost:1982   (a browser on this machine)
  http://192.168.1.42:1982   (a browser on another device on your network)
Control room: http://localhost:1982/config
Remote control: http://192.168.1.42:1982/remote-control   (open it on your phone)

Open the first address to tune in: the Community Bulletin Board is on channel 82, and CABLEVUE, the guide, is on channel 0. The up arrow turns the dial.

Example: a channel of old films

fetch-demo-channel.js downloads eight public-domain films from the Internet Archive's Prelinger collection into channels/retro-tv/:

node channels/fetch-demo-channel.js

RETRO TV: fetching 8 public-domain films into .../cable-82/channels/retro-tv
...
8 films on the shelf.
Now open the control room (/config), add a Video channel, and pick the retro-tv folder.

Add the channel in the control room and it plays on a broadcast clock. Tune away and back, and the film has kept running. The guide lists it with the other channels, now and next, half hour by half hour.

Features

• Channel 82, the Community Bulletin Board: your messages, the time, facts, dad jokes, the weather, RSS headlines in a crawl, the CheerLights color, and music behind it.
• Video channels from a folder of files, on a local disk, a USB drive, or a network share, with scheduled hours and commercial breaks.
• CABLEVUE, a guide on channel 0 that reads the same clock as the player, so it matches what is on.
• Jarvis, a 1980s computer-generated host who cuts in over any channel to say a line or answer a question, through POST /api/jarvis.
• Tuning from the keyboard, a USB gamepad or joystick, the phone remote at /remote-control, or POST /api/tune.
• The control room at /config: every setting on one page with one Save, picked up by the set at once.
• Output made for CRTs (4:3, per-axis overscan, a broadcast-safe palette) and a drawn faux CRT console for flat panels.
• Any web page as a channel, such as ws4kp for weather.

Jarvis	The control room	The remote

On a real television

The reference build is a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ on Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit) Trixie, an HDMI-to-RF modulator, and a 1987 Magnavox portable on channel 3. The Raspberry Pi guide covers Node.js on the Pi, power, the systemd service, the Chromium kiosk, RF and composite output, and tuning the picture.

Limits

• The API has no authentication. Anyone on your network can change the channel, save settings, or restart a Pi. Do not expose it to the internet.
• Video channels need a Pi 3 B+ or newer, which decodes H.264 up to about 480p comfortably. A Pi 2 runs the bulletin board only. A Pi Zero or Pi 1 can be the server but not the TV.
• Browsers hold back sound until the first click. The Pi kiosk launch line turns that off.
• The phone remote installs as a full-screen app on an iPhone. Android makes a browser shortcut instead, because the station serves plain HTTP.

Documentation

• The control room: the six groups, saving, and the Vitals panel.
• Channels: channel types, schedules, commercial breaks, drives, tuning, and switching off.
• The Community Bulletin Board: pages, music, CheerLights, and feeds.
• Jarvis: the host, his voice, and callers from the shell, Python, Node, and Home Assistant.
• Raspberry Pi and a CRT: the full build, step by step, and updating.
• Troubleshooting: error messages, addresses, sound, and the first ten minutes.
• API and configuration references.
• The build story, the build tutorial, and the explainer video.

Development

There is no build step: the files are what the browser runs. node --test test/server.test.mjs test/dial.test.mjs runs the Node suites. Testing covers the browser harness and the end-to-end drill. Architecture maps the files.

License

The code is under the MIT license (LICENSE). The bundled typeface is the IBM VGA 8x16 face from VileR's Ultimate Oldschool PC Font Pack, CC BY-SA 4.0 (fonts/LICENSE.txt). Weather data is from Open-Meteo, CC BY 4.0.